Flora of New Zealand Series

Holotype: New Zealand. South I., Canterbury, Boyle River, on bark of Nothofagus solandri var. cliffortioides, 29.iii.1980, D.J. Galloway s.n. – CHR 379996. Isotype – BM.

Description : Thallus orbicular, 2–5(–10) cm diam., corticolous (muscicolous), loosely attached, margins somewhat ascending. Lobes complex-imbricate, 5–10(–12) mm wide, convex to plane, not easily distinguished, coalescing centrally. Margins crenate-dentate and complexly sinuous at lobe apices, becoming densely phyllidiate centrally, strongly thickened and slightly inflexed below, without soredia or pseudocyphellae. Upper surface pale grey-blue to dark slate-blue when moist, pale greyish buff with a slight pale-bluish or olivaceous tinge when dry, photobiont-free areas pale whitish buff, margins of lobes and pyllidia suffused brown to red-brown or blackened, shallowly and minutely wrinkled-uneven, to pitted in places, often minutely scabrid-areolate (×10 lens), rarely patchily tomentose near lobe apices, tomentum short, velvety, white or buff, matt, coriaceous, glossy in parts, without isidia, soredia or pseudocyphellae. Phyllidia mainly marginal, flattened, dorsiventral, lower surface pale-yellow corticate, without pseudocyphellae, upper surface concolorous with thallus or somewhat darkened, brownish to blackened, developing from crenulate margins, occasionally also on laminal ridges, 0.1–0.4 mm tall and to 0.4 mm wide, clustered, simple, tear-shaped at first soon becoming nodular-glomerulate to coralloid-branched. Medulla yellow. Photobiont cyanobacterial. Lower surface pale-yellow or buff, uniformly tomentose from margins to centre, tomentum thin, velvety at margins, thicker and more woolly centrally, whitish or yellow-buff at margins, red-brown centrally. Pseudocyphellae sparse, scattered, yellow, pulverulent, convex, conspicuously projecting above tomentum, 0.2–0.5 mm diam., rather rare at margins, more common and prominent centrally. Apothecia and pycnidia not seen.

Chemistry : Pulvinic acid, pulvinic dilactone, calycin, 2α,3β-diacetoxystictane, 2α,3β-diacetoxystictane-22-ol, stictane-3β,22α-diol (tr.), 2α-acetoxystictane-3β,22α-diol, 3β-acetoxystictane-2α,22α-diol, stictane-2α,3β,22α-triol, pseudocyphellarin A, isopseudocyphellarin A, nephroarctin, 1'-chlorophenarctin, 2'- O -methylpseudocyphellarin A and 2'- O -methylisopseudocyphellarin A.

S: Canterbury (near Lewis Pass), Otago (Routeburn Valley). Known also from a single collection from New South Wales (Galloway et al. 2001b: 68; McCarthy 2003c, 2006).

Australasian

Illustration : Galloway (1988a: 211, fig. 106).

Pseudocyphellaria nermula is characterised by: the small, orbicular thallus; a yellow medulla; a cyanobacterial photobiont; marginal and laminal coralloid-branched phyllidia; a minutely scabrid-areolate upper surface; and a complex chemistry dominated by stictane triterpenoids.